Articles
Gladiator: An ‘Extinct’ Insect
is Found Alive
by David Catchpoole
Extraordinarily, insects earlier thought to have been extinct for
millions of years have been found thriving on a stony mountain top
in Namibia.1,2
Nicknamed ‘Gladiators’ because of their ‘fearsome’ appearance
and the armour that covers them as nymphs, the insects were first
noted from specimens fossilized in amber (preserved transparent tree
resin), ‘dated’ at 45 million years.3,4,5,6
News reports
described the find as ‘totally unexpected,’ likening
it to the discoveries of the Coelacanth, a ‘prehistoric’ fish
thought to have died out with the dinosaurs 65 million years ago,
and the Wollemi Pine, ‘the dinosaur tree,’ previously
known only from fossils dated at 150 million years.1,7 Science journal
said connecting the fossil to today’s insects ‘was like
unearthing long-hidden treasure,’ and related one entomologist’s
excitement: ‘How often do you get to investigate a fossil that
has come to life?’8
Evolutionists’ surprise at finding such ‘living fossils’ is
understandable, given the enormous (‘millions-of-years’)
intervals of time supposed to have elapsed since the specimens were
fossilized. But creationists understand that these fossils are likely
to date from the global Flood, only about 4,500 years ago, so are
not surprised when such creatures are found to be still living.9
Amber fossils
exist all over the world, containing not only insects10,11 but ‘just about everything from mosses and flowers, through
to parasitic worms, snails and a huge diversity of arthropods, to
lizards, bird feathers and mammal hair,’12,13 and even marine
or intertidal organisms such as barnacles and oysters.14 While no-one
is certain exactly how amber (fossilized tree resin) fossils, found
right around the world, were formed,15 there are indications that
unusual conditions prevailed when they were preserved. Such conditions
can be explained by the Biblical Flood (see The Amber Mystery below).
Likewise, Coelacanth and Wollemi Pine fossils are evidence of global
catastrophe, because they were evidently smothered quickly under
multiple layers of sediment, vast in extent.
So the next
time you hear a news report like the ‘Gladiator’ story,
of some ‘extinct’ insect or other creature being found
to be alive and well, remember that this is actually much more consistent
with the Bible than with prevailing secular belief in evolution and
millions of years. Hundreds of examples of such ‘living fossils’ strongly
suggest that the alleged ‘millions of years’ are mythical.
It also indicates that no matter how long the time that has passed,
no evolution has taken place. Rather, the so-called ‘living
fossil’ has been happily reproducing ‘after its kind,’ just
as the Bible says it was designed to do (10 times in Genesis 1).
The Amber Mystery
Although amber is universally accepted to be fossil tree resin, no-one
knows what forces cause tree resin to harden into amber, and no-one
has yet been able to synthesize it artificially.1 It is also uncertain
how organisms are preserved so perfectly inside hardened amber.
Evolutionists concede that ‘many interesting problems remain
concerning the age of [amber] deposits and their exact origin,’2
but they nevertheless assume that millions of years were needed.3,4,5
However, some
experts have long thought that amber fossils could have only come
about through a worldwide flood. When describing the
famous Baltic amber deposits, N. Heribert-Nilsson, then Director
of the Swedish Botanical Institute, wrote: ‘The geological
and paleobiological facts concerning the layers of amber are impossible
to understand unless the explanation is accepted that they are the
result of an allochthonous process, including the whole earth.’6
[Ed. note: allochthonous refers to transport from other locations
(from Greek allos, other; chthon, ground), i.e. by powerful water
flow—flood. The opposite is autochthonous, i.e. coming from
the same place without any need for transport, from Greek autos,
self.]
Even experts
with a millions-of-years geological perspective acknowledge that ‘appropriate burial conditions’ were necessary for
amber formation. To explain why amber deposits are often associated
with brown coal (lignite), they surmise that ‘copious resin-producing
trees’ were transported by water, then: ‘Wood and resin
are buried under the sediment and while the resin becomes amber,
the wood becomes lignite. Wet sediments of clay and sand preserve
the resin well because they are devoid of oxygen.’5 Large numbers
of trees felled, transported, then buried implies lots of floodwater!
Also, heat is said to have been a likely factor in promoting resin
flow from wood.3
Perhaps the
Flood waters—heated in places by the ‘fountains
of the great deep’ (Genesis 7:11)—provided ideal conditions
for large quantities of liquid amber to ooze from mats of floating
logs, enveloping insects and other flood debris before hardening.7
References and notes
Amber, 16 October 2002. Palmer, D., Golden opportunity, New Scientist
175(2355):48, 2002. Insects in amber, 2 December 2002.Amber in
Latvia, 16 October 2002.
What is amber?, 16 October 2002. Translated from the original German
on p. 1194 of the book Synthetische Artbildung, cited in Creation
1(2):5, 1978.After heavy tropical rain, abundant rain-drowned insects
often cover the bottom of pools, and/or float near the surface. As
amber’s specific gravity is slightly over one, it floats in
saltwater but sinks in fresh water, leaving the possibility that
material preserved in amber was either flotsam or settlings, or perhaps
both (specific gravity is the density of a substance relative to
pure water, which therefore has SG = 1 by definition).
"Extinct" insect found on peak, Sydney Daily Telegraph, p. 34,
22 March 2002.
The find triggered the description of a new taxonomic order, Mantophasmatodea,
to accommodate both the living species and the amber fossils (previously
unidentified), bringing the number of insect orders to 31.
Klass,
K.-D., Zompro, O., Kristensen, N.P. and Adis, J., Mantophasmatodea:
A new insect order with extant members in the Afrotropics, Science
296 (5572):1456–1459, 2002.
Adis, J., Zompro, O., Moombolah-Goagoses, E. and Marais, E., Gladiators:
A new order of insect, Scientific American 287(5):42–47, 2002.
After studying the amber fossils, entomologist Oliver Zompro checked
museums worldwide for similar specimens. Two insects collected in
Tanzania and Namibia last century appeared related to the amber fossils,
suggesting that the insect was not extinct. In 2002, Zompro and others
found a dozen live ‘gladiator’ insects by painstakingly
searching through grass clumps in Namibia’s Brandberg Mountains.
It was subsequently realized that international scientific expeditions
to the area in 1998 and 2000 had already found specimens, but had
not identified them. Max Planck Doctoral Student discovers ‘living
fossils’, Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science,
3 May 2002. Their placement in a new insect order has been questioned by some
entomologists, but others respond that they do not fit into any other
order. Mantophasmatodea: A new insect order?, Science 297(5582):731,
2002.
Usage of the common name ‘Gladiator’ has been somewhat
ambiguous. The entomologists who identified and placed the insects
in the new order Mantophasmatodea seem to have originally applied
the term to embrace all species in the new grouping (Ref. 3). Some
later reports say ‘Gladiator’ is only applied to the
Brandberg Mountain species, with its somewhat spiny nymphs, and not
to other living representatives of Mantophasmatodea found elsewhere
(Ref. 9), which, like the fossils in amber, were less spiny. Theron,
H., Entomologists amazed by new insect order from Namaqualand, 6
January 2003; Order: Mantophasmatodea (mantos), 6 January 2003.
The Wollemi Pine of the insect world, ABC News in Science, 17 Oct.
2002.
Pennisi, E., New insect order speaks to life’s diversity, Science
296(5567):445–447, 2002.
Since the Namibia discovery, living representatives of Mantophasmatodea
have been found in South Africa’s Western Cape Province. Picker,
M.D., Colville, J.F., van Noort, S., Mantophasmatodea now in South
Africa, Science 297(5586):1475, 2002.
Grimaldi, D.A., Captured in Amber, Scientific American 274(4):70–77,
1996.
Poinar, G.O., Singer, R., Upper Eocene Gilled Mushroom from the Dominican
Republic, Science 248(4959):1099–1101, 1990.
Palmer, D., Golden opportunity, New Scientist 175(2355):48, 2002.
For lizards, see: The Gecko, 13 November 2002; Lizard recently discovered
in Baltic amber, 13 November 2002.
Santiago-Blay, J.A., Part of a possible brackish community preserved
in Chiapas amber, 13 November 2002.
Langenheim, J.H., Amber: A botanical inquiry, Science 163(3872):1157–1169,
1969.
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/162
Used by permission of Creation Ministries International: www.creationontheweb.com
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